As part of the 20th anniversary of open source software and the Open Source Initiative , the OSI is reaching out to our community of individual and affiliate members, sponsors, current and past board directors, and supporters to share their success stories. We want to hear from those who’ve succeeded in, and with, open source software, development, and communities. This time, we're hearing from OSI Premium Sponsor Cumulus Networks.

This update was provided by Chris Jerdonek (@cjerdonek) and has an important and urgent call to action to help defend elections in California: This Sunday, May 6 at 2pm in San Francisco's Mission District, an open source voting "campaign kick-off" event is happening with many city and state leaders speaking in support. Can you spare some time to help?

Rome (Italy) - March 27, 2018 – Engineering Group, the global IT player and Italian leader in digital transformation, announced their continued sponsorship of the Open Source Initiative (OSI). The OSI is internationally recognized as the stewards of open source software, working to promote and protect open source projects, development and communities.

The California Association of Voting Officials (CAVO), and OSI Affiliate Member, is working on several fronts to promote the adoption of open source software in voting systems. In addition to being featured in an upcoming documentary, the group has recently partnered with a California-based elections reform group, focused on limiting the influence of "big money" in politics. Their work has recently seen success at the federal level in the US as well.

The OSI's 2018 elections ran from February 3, with the opening of nominations, through March 16, when the voting was closed at 12:00 midnight PDT. This year's Board of Directors election sought to fill two Affiliate Member seats, and two Individual Member seats.

PALO ALTO, Calif. - March 6, 2018 -- Today the Open Source Initiative® (OSI) announced its Incubator Project, ClearlyDefined, a crowdsourced project aimed at boosting the success of FOSS projects by clearly defining their status. Absences or ambiguities around licensing or known security vulnerabilities can erode confidence and limit project success. Project teams often are not aware of these concerns or do not know how to address them.

The Open Source Initiative (OSI) celebrated its 20th Anniversary at Campus Party Brazil 2018 during the first week of February. Campus Party Brazil is among the largest and most diverse tech events in the world. The eleventh edition of the event received a total of 120,000 attendees, of which 8000 were "campers" (participants who actually camp in tents inside this week long event). Approximately 40% of attendees were women, which is a very high mark for a tech event.